FSBUS Router 2

[tuomas]

Hi Dirk!

At least with the Simkits stuff (we have the instruments on our aviation club sim project) - I noticed a difference: They recommend HiTec servos, and indeed: I got Futaba ones, and they do not have that big of an angle for the travel. They simply do not rotate to the end with the same pulse as Hitecs do. There is still some movement available (if you turn by hand) before the end limiter, but the servo itself will not turn, it just vibrates.

So it looks that different servos have different characteristics for pulse response I think. You should probably try with a Hitec and Futaba as a testing pair, those really show the difference - at least here.

I originally had trouble calibrating some simkits instruments that depend on the full travel of the servo, and I had to swap in some Hitec servos from my RC plane in order to make them work. The Futabas work great on the plane anyway, so I was lucky to have those around. Hitecs worked OK eventually. So that is a tip for you others out there until a solution is found: try if Hitec servos respond better to FSBUS. They should be slightly cheaper too I think, otherwise the basic servos should be of equal quality anyway, and in RC use there is no difference since you can adjust the linkages to control surfaces..

Best,

Tuomas

[dirkan]

Hello Tuomas,

it seems, there is finetuning needed for servo module. I supppose to do the following.

Current pulse range in servo is limited to that servo, which i used during development. I expected, other servos will be compatible to that range.
I will double this range, so i hope any servo will fit into.
The width of range and startoffset will then be calibrated in fsbus for each servo object.

But before i will make the second beta available.
Any other suggestions ?

kind regards Dirk

[fmw]

Hi Dirk

It will be a good thing to have a "mark" to revers the servo.

Regards
Finn

[tuomas]

For other suggestions, I have these strange old ALPS rotary encoders here that are much like the Knitters in that the pulses are separated. But it acts a bit strangely, since it keeps the connections "up" all the time, and when you rotate, it cuts the rotation side connection to zero when you rotate. A bit hard to explain, but I hope a pic helps.

So instead of:

A ____________________________
B -___-___-___-___-___-___-___

It does

A ----------------------------
B _---_---_---_---_---_---_---

So it is a bit strange

The problem is, those are nifty, and also contain an integrated pushbutton and I got those for one euro a piece, but they had just a small batch of those they found somewhere.

Anyway, wiht FSBUS1 I wired those as two different switches, which works. But the chatter-killer algorithm makes life hard - I use those for the gauge knobs like for VOR1 etc, and those tend to be rotated fast.

Now I know I am probably the only person in existence with this kind of weird switches (no way to get Knitters from here with reasonable effort) - but would it be possible to either add the chatter-fix adjustment stuff to plain swithces as well, or alternatively would it be possible to detect this kind of a switch as "knitter"-type and support it too?

It is a bit sucky since I know it is a lot of work for such a small userbase :-/

Tuomas

[volante]

Hi Tuomas

Have you tried inverting the readout for the rotary?

[tuomas]

Yea, but the problem is, it does nothing. Either as "up/down" or "type2 rotary"..

How should one wire a knitter-type switch? Like 2 "regular switches", with common "ground" wire?

Tuomas

[volante]

I definitely think you wire them as two switches with common ground, but I am not able to check it out now.

Also the Row ID and Sub ID of the Rotary2 has to reflect what inputs you are using on the FSKEY.

Good luck
Vidar

[Pantu]

Hi Tuomas,

the Knitter rotary is to be treated like 2 switches with 1 common contact (middle post).
However there seems to be a little problem in FSBus2 as according to the readme of version 1.4 one could use 4 knitter on 1 row. If you do like this, the knitter will only show reaction for one direction (up or down.
It´s been reported that if you use only 1 knitter per row it then would work ok.
I´m sure Dirk will correct this with the next release.

Regards

Peter

[tuomas]

Eek!

I was converting my cockpit to FSBUS2 eventually, and I have two important issues:

* Is it possible to do 2-rotary radio tuning? With the new auto-wrap-around stuff I can do radios without key events, but if I have stuff like this:

RadioWholeMHz - value +-1000 on notch

RadioFrac - value +-25 on notch,
frac only

Those work, but when I turn the "whole" rotary, it resets the fractional part to zero..?

* Another issue is: was "add_value" dropped? I cannot find it on switches, and it was useful at least for my flap switch which is just a 3-position toggle that returns to center ("more flaps" and "less flaps" - nice for different aircraft types which each have different number of flap stops)

Also the C172 I fly contains a "step-less" flap where it has just the 3-position lever which I need to hold "down" to add flaps, and "up" when I want to take up flaps. It just runs the flap motor drive as long as I keep the switch pressed. This would be also nice to have, I am thinking of doing it with the "repeat" option.

Tuomas

[dirkan]

Hello Tuomas,

what means Eek!

The decimal rotary problem needs to be tested by me.
The add flag is no longer part of the fsbus objects, but defined in fsif.ini. There is a option columns which may contain a + . This is the new add flag.
To keep this file compatible, i will add an alternative flaps entry with add. If you do it, the next update will cause headache.

The internal logic has changed a lot from version 1 to version 2. The aim is to make all the fsbus1 features available in 2.

regards Dirk